Taxi Terrorists

by HolyMole, Sunday, November 16, 2014, 22:46 (4302 days ago) @ Linda from Canada

The events described in this, and your previous post, are extremely upsetting to us.
I assume that the car owned by the Mexican couple from Los Achotes had Guerrero, or at least Mexican plates?
We drive a vehicle with Canadian license plates: in that sense, we stick out like a sore thumb. We often take friends to La Ropa, Playas Larga and Blanca, Barra or Troncones. Our daughter and her girlfriend hope to come to Zihua in February/March - their first trip ever to Mexico.
We haven't yet been victims of this kind of terrorizing and extortion by the taxistas, but obviously, we should now expect to be, sometime during our 5+ months here.
There's no script on how to handle such an occurrence, but we would appreciate any suggestions.
Do we simply avoid any problems by informing our friends - and, I suppose, our daughter too - that, unfortunately, we are unable to pick them up or deliver them to the airport, and are unable to give them a lift to any of the local beaches, or to Troncones, due to the taxi terrorists? That clearly would play into the hands of these criminals - and that's exactly how they want us to act.
Or do we confront them?
Should we simply sit in our vehicle when surrounded, close the windows, turn on the A/C, turn up the volume on a good CD and wait them out? After all, time is money for taxi drivers.
(We don't use a cellphone, so calling the police is not an option. And "calling the police" is unlikely to result in the same response one would expect in a more law-abiding society. The very fact that these taxi terrorists can operate with impunity is a clear indication of the futility of expecting police protection.)
But that tactic invites vandalism to my vehicle. I park on the street overnight. If I anger these terrorists, word will undoubtedly go out to be on the watch for my vehicle, and I have no doubt that my vehicle would be vandalized sooner or later.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a "hothead" when I get angry. And I know that if we get carjacked by taxi terrorists, I'm at a real risk of losing my cool. I expect that would/could get me, my wife and passengers, and/or my vehicle into REAL trouble - the kind of hurt you don't want.
This Board is primarily a source of information for tourists. For that reason, discussion of Zihua's, Guerrero's and Mexico's "underbelly" has been discouraged, and usually for good reason: since the nastier side of life here seldom affects or involves tourists during their stay, why dwell on them, when the only result is to discourage others from coming, and to harm those honest, legitimate businesses that need tourists to survive?
I am interested in knowing as much as I can about the area where we've spent almost half our lives for the past 9 years, so it has taken me awhile to accept that the Board isn't the place to discuss many of Zihua's problems.....except those which impact us as tourists and foreign "semi-residents".
However, this threat from the taxi terrorists, plus an incident a week ago across from Comercial Mexicana, where we came upon a drive-by assassination only 4 or 5 minutes after the fact - (and could very well have been directly in the line of fire loading groceries into the trunk of our car, had we been there only those 4 or 5 minutes earlier) has us very rattled.
I will send an email about the taxi terrorists to those officials responsible for tourism issues - for all the good it will do.
Anyone have any ideas how carjacking victims should respond to these threats?
(And please - no "shite happens everywhere" or "do you know how many murders there were last weekend in Peoria" nonsense.)


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